


Without wings

by rivkat



Series: Only Sweeter [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 19:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivkat/pseuds/rivkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt from citrusjava: Tell us about that time, after the end of Only Sweeter, when the boys met someone who'd known them as a couple. … Oh! I really really want Dean with his memories thinking about how he fell for Sam when he didn't have them.<br/>NB: This isn't the last in the series, chronologically!  That's Let the Good Times Roll.  So it gets better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without wings

The thing was, Dean had known a bunch of different Sams even before he’d lost his memory. There was the Sammy of his childhood, all worshipful and trusting; the Sammy of his adolescence, rebellious and resentful; the Sam he’d found at Stanford, grown-up and ambitious; the grieving, vision-wracked Sam he’d gone on the road with; the wild-eyed Sam trying to save him from his deal; the junkie Sam lying to him after Hell; the Sam-after-averting-the-apocalypse who looked at him all soft like Dean was _broken_. That was what made it so ridiculously hard to keep that last Sam, the one he was—the one he’d fucked, separate from the ones who were his brother.  
  
He’d _looked up_ to Sam, was maybe the worst part. Not just admired him, not just wanted him. Dean knew well enough why Sam hadn’t felt that kind of respect for him, the real him, in years; Dean hadn’t deserved it. But it still burned.  
  
And then the family of the little girl he’d made the dreamcatcher for called. They thought their neighbors’ house was haunted. The neighbors’ teenage son had almost been killed. Could Sam and Dean help?  
  
Sam didn’t like the idea, Dean could tell. He thought Dean was back to trying to get himself killed. Or, still trying to get himself killed, really, since the person in Dean’s body hadn’t been Dean for a while.  
  
“Don’t worry,” he said and grinned so that Sam flinched, “I’ll let you get thrown around this time.”  
  
They drove.  
  
The Solorz family was right about the problem, wrong about the number—five ghosts: victims of a friendly neighborhood serial killer who’d never been caught. (Dean was screwed up, yes, but jesus fuck people were awful to each other; kind of made you wonder about the point of having Hell be separate.) Five might be a personal best for them. Or worst, Dean thought, as he staggered upright and managed to fire his last shell, fumbling to reload as Sam frantically dug bones out of the basement walls, salting and burning as he went.  
  
The Solorzes offered them a place to stay and patch themselves up, afterwards, and Dean wasn’t in a driving mood—he hated having to get blood out of the seats—so he agreed.  
  
The guest room only had one bed, he realized when he stepped inside.  
  
Of course, they’d known Sam and Dean, the partners.  
  
Fuck.  
  
He would’ve up and left, but he was pretty woozy, and Sam was still bleeding.  
  
Give him credit, Sam knew to keep his mouth shut when he saw the bed, and just sat down. Of course then he had to ruin it by trying to get his own shirt off, pulling at the wound, and Dean ended up touching him even more, making him stop wriggling and then closing up the cut with surgical glue and tape, with a bandage on top.  
  
Dean remembered tending Sam’s wounds, from before and after his life had been stolen by the fairy; he remembered being so careful with Sam, who put himself in danger to protect anyone in need. How could anyone meet someone like Sam and not respond to that heroism, that strength? Not that he’d have admitted it even mid-amnesia, but Sam had been a golden god, even the bossiness understandable and a little bit charming, because Sam was always so thorough in his plans. And his idol had, amazingly, loved him back. Missing that Sam felt like having his heart carved right out of his chest, worse because Sam was still right here. Dean was the one who’d been turned back into who he _really_ was.  
  
Whatever Sam saw in Dean’s face, he didn’t say anything. Always so careful now, trying to let Dean take the lead.  
  
But Dean knew that if he let himself sleep in the same bed with Sam, he’d wake up snuggled close, his own traitor body thinking it’d found its home.  
  
He didn’t want to be that half-man again, born at thirty-two and his family lost to him. Bitter and twisted as they’d made him, his memories were his, and no magic motherfucker’s to take away. But the way the Solorzes treated them—the way they’d been—  
  
It would’ve taken a bigger fool than Dean not to want that back.  
  
So Dean bedded down on the floor in front of the door, just a pillow and one of the blankets. He didn’t look at Sam and he didn’t let himself think. He’d slept in worse places.  
  
In the morning, they’d smile and thank the family. They’d eat breakfast and they’d get back on the road.  
  
They’d pretended to be other people for years when they were working cases. Pretending to be that Dean, the one who had everything he wanted, wouldn’t be any different.


End file.
